The Drifters Album: “Rockin' & Driftin': The Drifters Box”

Rockin' & Driftin': The Drifters Box is an excellent overview of the Drifters long recording history. The quality of the recordings is first rate (as usual with Rhino). The first 2 discs are fantastic but the third disc falters as it documents the rather sad tail end of the career of the Drifters after the death of the great Rudy Lewis. The booklet that accompanies this set is very good and does a marvelous job tracking down the many artists who recorded under the Drifters name over the years.

The 48-page illustrated and oversized book that comes with ROCKIN' & DRIFTIN' * THE DRIFTERS BOX is stapled to the spine of this durable heavy plastic fold-open album. Chockful of photos, bios and song details, it's very well written and layed out.

The three CDs of music here are pure delight-- all these great sounding transfers are original tracks that cover the best years of this seminal vocal group's career-- well before they were relegated to the rock & roll revival circuit, and to cranking out album after album of inferior re-recordings. This is the motherlode, folks-- the great ATCO and ATLANTIC sides that all fans of this group want. Buy with confidence!

TOTAL RUNNING TIMES--

DISC ONE -- 68:02

DISC TWO -- 68:33

DISC THREE -- 76:23

This is the CD I have been looking for for a while. With Clyde delivering Money Honey, Bobby drilling out Drip Drop, Johnny Moore riveting out Ruby Baby, Ben melodically phrasing There Goes My Baby, Johnny Williams pleading (If You Cry) True Love, True Love, Rudy On Broadway, and many other hits, you get in my opinion the best of all the Drifters, and some of Ben's and Clyde's solo hits. This CD captures it all. You must have this collection as part of your music library.

Being a collector of old do-wop 45's; I appreciate the original sounds. These are not remakes of Drifters that followed the orginial singers. I like the pamphlet that came with the CD's, a nice little history background. It's worth the money.

The seven volumes on the Sequel Label (UK) are more complete during the classic years, and have superb essays. Unfortunately, they are out of print and hard to track down.